she shook her arm and swiped at the water droplets.
“Here.” Michael rolled down a sleeve. For a dime’s value of seconds she stood beguiled as he dried her hand and forearm with a strip of gray that matched his eyes.
His hands were large, the knuckles heavy with a light dusting of hair. She envisioned those hands holding a scalpel. Or maybe pressing a tummy searching for abnormalities and ailments. She envisioned his hands on her tummy.
She looked up and found his eyes dark with wonder, his mouth tight, the tiny scar pale. He had thick, spiky lashes. Black as pitch. How would they feel tickling her lips, her fingers?
Get real, Shanna.
Her hands reeked of cows; his had been washed with Ivory. Her hair was jammed under a Seahawks cap. His lay in a short, crisp style.
No matter how she viewed it, he was the princely physician and she the mere milkmaid.
His thumbpad, gentle and strong, brushed the veins of her wrist and, for a heartbeat, rested in her palm. An unfamiliar touch. One, if she were honest, she’d never experienced. Certainly not with Wade. She shivered. This dreadful magnetism was wrong.
“You’re chilled.”
Mercy. That bass voice. She looked to where his fingers cupped her wrist, where her flesh goose-bumped. How discordant, the magnitude of his hand to her bones. Argh! Absurd, fantasizing about a man whose knuckles and flipped sleeves had her insides on a wave drill. In social circles they were as comparable as a Lamborghini and a farm pickup. She was tailored to guys like Wade with his Tony Lama boots, black Stetsons, pearl-buttoned shirts—and smelling of saddles and horse sweat. Michael was…a surgeon.
Carefully, she stepped back and folded her arms over her chest. Hiding. “Nothing wrong with the valve. Truth is, the entire dairy’s in great shape.”
“So’s your kitchen drainpipe.”
“It’s fixed?”
“Put in a new seal when I got home from work.”
“You?”
A pleased little-boy smile. “I wasn’t always a doctor, Shanna. I learned to use a wrench before a stethoscope.”
Heat moved up her neck. “Sorry, I wasn’t being sarcastic.”
“I know.” They looked at each other for a long moment. He said, “I also bought a couple tins of paint. They’re on the doormat. Oliver can help. I should have thought of it before.” He rubbed his forehead. “I’m not used to this selling business.”
Her smile faded. She had no business telling him what to do. No business feeling the way she did. About him or the child. But telling and feeling were two traits she’d never governed with discretion.
“You know, Doc,” she said, heading for the barn doors. “You really should reconsider and keep this place for yourself and your niece. The second you sign on that dotted line, it’s over. And that,” she speared him with a glance, “will be a flipping shame.”
Together they entered the warm, musky interior of the milking parlor.
A flipping shame? Michael thought, striding beside her. Dammit, woman, where do you come off with your assessments?
She knew nothing about the pain and fear he endured living in this place, in this community. What did she know about medical facilities short of resources, funding and expertise? What did she know about a life cut off in its prime?
“It’s like that Amy Grant song,” she continued. “‘You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.’ This place has all the amenities you’d ever want for raising a child. Fresh air, peace, quiet. Once you sell, it’ll—”
He stopped. “Did you not understand what I said the other day? I don’t need your advice on what’s best for this place or—”
She swung around. “Or what, Doctor? You’ll fire me? We’ve been there, done it, framed the picture.” She lifted the Seahawks cap and raked back the jungle of her hair. “Look. All I’m suggesting is don’t rush into something you may regret a month from now.”
They were at the midpoint of the long corridor. Light filtered through the doors and caught in the hollows of her cheeks. If he closed his eyes, he’d recall each fine detail.
Five days ago the woman hadn’t existed. Now, she never left his mind. He didn’t want to feel anything for her. Starting with the first of those rudimentary aspects like…lust.
Not that he didn’t enjoy the body side of the lure. He did. He appreciated the sight of a pretty woman. Mostly, he praised his stoic heart, thumping behind his ribs, for its neutrality in spite of any attraction or spark.
Except, around this woman his heart did crazy, unorthodox things. He didn’t understand it. Barring her eyes, she was neither traditionally beautiful nor alluring. Her body was curveless, her short hair a persistent tangle. Never mind that she poked her slim, shapely nose in his business.
“What do you want from me?” he asked wearily.
A direct look. “Nothing. But Jenni does. Ask her.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake, she’s six, not twenty-six.”
“She’s a person, Michael. She has feelings, which, at the moment, she doesn’t understand.”
Anger tight in his chest, he jammed his hands into his pockets. “You think I don’t know that?”
“Then talk about her parents. She needs to know how you feel about their loss. Most of all, that you’re not angry with her.”
“I’m not angry with her!” Damn. She’d pinned him to the wall and pared off layers he’d stapled down. He wasn’t ready to talk about Leigh. Still, fresh, the wounds tore easily.
With a heavy sigh, he massaged his nape. “Look, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time the other day and for that I’m sorry, but I am selling this farm.”
Shanna hesitated, then shrugged. “Your decision.”
“Yes,” he said, dropping his hand. “It is.”
She turned to go then stopped. “Where is Jenni, by the way?”
He refused to feel guilty. “At my grandmother’s. I’m picking her up in a few minutes.” I wanted to come home first. See you.
“Does she know you’ll be moving her to a new home?”
“Jen’s been to my town house before.”
She nodded, acquiescing.
The gesture irked him. “What I do or don’t do in respect to my niece,” he said, pushing past her and striding down the aisle, “is not your concern. Do the job you were hired for, Ms. McKay, and we’ll get along fine.”
“As in stick to the barn and cows, Doc? Know my place?”
He stopped, parked his hands at his waist, and
